Author: Patric Nordbeck

Are one of the lines longer, shorter or the same length as the other one?

Traditional psychology holds that perception is flawed, we see illusions because the underlying perceptual aspects of our experience need to be embellished, corrected, interpreted, etc, by our brain. While doing this we make mistakes. It is often posited as one of the major issues for ecological psychology to explain because it seems to invite cognition. After all, if all the information is detectable out in the environment, then why would we perceive the top line as shorter and the bottom one as longer?

Perceptual illusions in real life (not on paper or a screen) can quite easily be dealt with. We could argue that the we have not sampled enough of the available information in the ambient optic array, so we do that by locomotion and change of viewing angle. When we do, very many illusions are simply dispelled (Kennedy & Portal, 1990, or Michaels & Corello, 1981). In fact Michaels and Corello explains this very well; if we are in a desert, looking for water and see a mirage (which may or may not be water), it is right of us to investigate if it is or not, not doing so would be the wrong action to take. In the same way, they exemplify, could we be fooled by a hologram until we reach out to try and touch it.

Besides this point, the illusions that aren’t able to be dispelled by simply exploring, are always images or videos on a screen or paper. Making them in part unexplorable. As for the Müller-Lyer illusion, it is at the same time simple but abstract forms. All the information given is what is there, but even looking at it now, knowing they are the same length, I still perceive them as different lengths. A solution that has been suggested elsewhere (lost the reference sorry) is that the top figure shows an enclosing space, if we were to reach our hand in, we would be more constrained than the bottom figure. The information is specifying a smaller versus a larger space.

Another assumption of traditional psychology is that (visual) perception works with the simplest aspects, lines, points, and that then there is a constructive process cognitively that puts things together into more and more complex constructions of what we perceive (into the full 3d-experience of the world). For a traditionalist then, there is no doubt it is an illusion, the lines are the same length, we perceive them to be different -our brain is playing tricks with us. From an ecological standpoint, it is impossible not to see the four end lines, you can’t not perceive them when perceiving the end of the lines. Therefore, they matter.

It is fully possible that we actually don’t perceive the “simplest” form and construct it, in fact, this is what ecological psychology says we don’t do. The example comes from the Planimeter (Runeson). A mechanical, simple, device that can measure the area of irregular patches without knowing length, width or doing any computations. (For its full explanation, see here.) It thus measures a “higher order” thing, sqaure cm (or inch) without the “simpler” concepts. It is fully possible to conceive of the idea that we then simply cannot ignore the four end lines -they are not individual lines, they are a form that is important, in it’s whole, to our perception of it. For this reason, it may just be so that the question “Are one of the lines shorter, longer or the same length as the other?” a silly question to ask. Because our perceptual system does not work on simple structure and construction, it is forcing us to do something that we simply don’t do, and therefore do it poorly.

(Which unfortunately is not too uncommon in the traditional psychological literature.)

Even if we theorise there to be a universe contracting and expanding, or a Big Bang, it might be impossible to actually “see” it. The reason would be found in Ecological Psychology.

Only when Ambient Light has structure does it specify the environment. There has to be differences in different directions, for it to contain any information. Perfect symmetry, maximum entropy, is theorised to be a whole bunch of homogeniety in layout, distance between particles, etc. If we have a medium that is perfectly evenly distributed, we do not have difference. So how could we ever “see” it?

As a system, there has to be a continuously reproducable heterogeneity of processes, for there to be an emergent level (a system) from it. The only difference between animate and non-animate things, is that animate things continue to produce stably reproducible homogenous levels (by heterogenous sub-processes). Non-animate objects can only create homogenous processes, more of the same, unless they increase into vast sizes (which means they are not unimportant because they have consequences for possible interactions in lower levels, like gravity being a prerequisite of biochemical organisms). When the interaction is reproduced over time however, the emergent level becomes less temporary. The emergent level needs to be reproduced homogenously over time, i.e. the consequences of a heterogenous system needs to be homogenous. Constraints, and laws, ensure this to be the case (stochasticity under laws). For example, gravity is stable enough through both space and time on earth to sustain life to develop further. Thus, a system like a human being needs to be able to reproduce work to survive, but perceiving a human (the system) as a unit, its constituent parts need to be heterogenous. This entails that otherwise no “internal” (to the system) difference can be created, nothing to drive the system.

When it comes to humans, I believe “emotions” drive our system. They are field potentials contained through (not in) our body. The experience of emotions, their phenomenology, is different to what I mean by “emotions” in this article (make no mistake that these thoughts are founded on direct perception, although this doesn’t necessarily has a bearing on “emotions”, we are still far away to hypothesise differently though). Let’s assume that our experience of the world simply is the continuous flow of collective (all senses) perception of the world, we perceive the world directly (in the philosophical sense) but propagation through our body (whatever, after we understand the specificity of direct perception, may end up being “in” us) takes time. Thus, and also traditionally, our experience of “emotions”, can be a part of the perceptual online flow and experienced as emotions.

“Emotions” are the driving forces of any biochemical thing (or organisms). “Emotions” are the consequence of Direct Perception and Acting in the world (as well as the history of previous DP and A). They are the internal force acting on the system to create difference –and in the continued propagation, creates an autocatakinetic system around the initial force. This means that forces can have graded impact on us, and if weak and not reproduced over time, simply abates. If reproduced, resulting in build-up of impact, or if the force is strong to begin with, it then forces an “internal” difference, creating an autocatakinetic system around it and becoming the internal force acting continuingly back onto the system. These “internal” potentials can be abated by producing work (herein is defined as body movement [muscle movement by limbs, body and/or face {including the vocal tract}] and biochemical compounds [saliva, sweat, excrement, etc]). One point is that this means I believe emotions act as the threshold for human systems to self-organise into different behaviours. Another point is that our body is a less temporary process (a structure) and as such biochemical energy can hold some energy through it’s physical matter. While some of the entropy produced by work, leaves the body as heat, some of it is kept within the system. It acts on the system (metaphorically) as a weight, which we can withstand for a certain amount of time. Build-up of entropy, stored entropy, is the entropy debt in the body. However, when entropy debt (the entropy stored through, not in, organismic structure) reaches a threshold, organisms need to rid themselves of it.

“Bertalanffy and Schröedinger emphasized that as long as an autocatakinetic system produces entropy fast enough to compensate for its development and maintenance away from equilibrium (its own internal entropy reduction) it is permitted to exist.” -Swenson

When entropy debt is massive, we have to produce work or ingest chemical compounds to keep energy propagating in our systems. However, when entropy debt increases past our capability of producing work to maintain it, we undergo a period of involuntary torpor (physical and mental lethargy). When entropy debt is simply at the amount of work we produce during a relatively normal day, it is enough that we lower our energy propagation (become calm) enough to lower our produced work (and energy propagation) underneath the level of entropy debt, to fall asleep. Lower amounts of entropy debt can be ridded by resting. Entropy debt has to be repaid. It does so by forcing us to rest (no matter our attempt to avoid it). In fact, without REM sleep, we risk our life.

Why do we sleep? Because we need to repay entropy debt. Perhaps it could be argued that even the small amount of control (free will) that we (might) have, needs to be surrendered temporarily for us to repay the debt automatically created solely by our existence (maintenance away from equilibrium). Not repaying entropy debt results in the degrading of our physical matter –as a course of life, this will happen at any rate since all physical matter simply are temporary processes, affected by the energy that runs through them (biological, chemical or physical). But we can affect it. As a simple example, for a human; food, sleep, exercise and social interaction are vital. Specific foods can increase specific compounds in our body, for example fat intake, that make previous energy propagation require more work. Or sleep deprivation does not allow us to rid ourselves of entropy debt. In many different ways we can affect propagation of energy, intake and ridding ourselves of entropy debt. If not (except obvious health side-effects) our structure (less temporary process) gets ‘damaged’ -moves toward disorder. And it does it in specific ways, for example, by telomere shortening (but there are a couple more specific biological consequences). (This is also a reason why there isn’t a one-fix-all for aging.) However, we can never stop aging completely, this is due to our physical make-up and the necessary energy propagation through it which, given time, will always lead to higher rates of disorder. We can however affect the rate of disorder.

In short, my hypotheses are that a) emotions are internal potentials, b) they create an autocatakinetic system around their initial internal force, c) reaching an emotional threshold self-organises behaviour, d) entropy debt in human systems is ridded by rest, e) non-ridded entropy debt damages the human system, f) we can never completely hinder damage, g) we can affect how much work energy propagation requires, and h) we can affect how much entropy build-up we can withstand (without damage).

I suspect this list of hypotheses will be added to and detracted from, those who overcome entropy debt shall see.

A highly symmetrical face leaves little work needed to be produced by the perceiver. The perceiver essentially does not find “obstacles” in what hie perceives, which has the inherent property of requiring less work. Not inciting work keeps the perceiver’s synchronisation with hier’s environment stable -there is no perturbation and consequently no change. This non-change then is experienced as trygghet (safety, security, trust). Trygghet being a basic human need means it will be preferred.

I want to apologise outright. I couldn’t help myself when reading Linda Smith’s chapter on “More than concepts: How multiple integrations make human intelligence”. There is a section describing an experiment where an infant’s feet are tied to a mobile above its crib and it reminded me of my beliefs about the construct of personality. Again, I do apologise, please take in jest. Original text first, Personality afterwards.

If you put a brain in a vat and connect all the inputs necessary, would the brain be fooled that it actually wasn’t a brain in a vat, but a normal brain in a normal world?

All kinds of fun philosophical issues follow. Embodiment however, could firstly argue that since it is only a brain, it could not function at all because brain is body -there is no separating. The argument would then be that all the inputs is a misleading assumption behind the question. We would obviously not have all the inputs (bar for a moment that input/output type stuff is difficult to maintain under this perspective). However, for argument’s sake, let’s accept both the word input (and all its assumptions) as well as that a brain is connected in such a way that it may as well have been a part of a body and in a world. This does however take the fun out of the question since we are basically saying that it already is fooled to be a normal brain in a normal world. The curiosity however is that, from an embodied perspective, you are more or less forced to clarify the example to the extent where it isn’t an exciting question.

Why?

It is only really exciting to begin with because growing up we are taught that the brain is separate from the body, we may even be taught the the mind is separate from the brain -so the example feeds off of common sensical, traditional, dualism -brain is something different from body, and/or -mind is different from brain. Embodiment doesn’t allow this separation, which forces a restatement of the question -in a way that answers it implicitly. Neat, right!?

“It is such a coincidence that we exist. It is such a coincidence… Accident… Chance… Random”

But the two most important things are that every second of every minute of the universe’s existence these “coincidences” keep being created, and, if that “coincidence” can’t be reproduced over and over, over the course of massive amounts of time, then it wouldn’t exist now (as so many things don’t). So we can call us being here “coincidental” or our universe being hospitable to life a “coincidence”, but in reality, we are no more an anomaly than anything else. Additionally, very importantly, if we didn’t reproduce the stable patterns of a body or even further back in time, cell division, then we wouldn’t be here either. But. The vital aspects of environment-organism has been kept stable, in a way that has allowed reproduction of biochemical matter, for us to eventually have been evolved into.

So if you ask me. Yes, of course it is a coincidence that we exist and it depended on the stability of our environment. But we are as improbable as anything else that currently exist in our universe, and, considering the number of “coincidences” created (and the vast majority deconstructed) all the time, it is infinitely probable that ‘that which can be reproduced’ will continue to exist. So we are not a coincidence. (I don’t subscribe to determinism or anthrocentrism, so, no, the universe didn’t evolve to provide space for us. The universe has no intention, it just is. But that is the topic of another post. Or book.)

“This new analysis suggests that we may have misunderstood the ethical as well as the theoretical issues raised by Milgram’s studies. We need to ask whether it is right to protect participants’ own wellbeing by leading them to think that harming the wellbeing of others can be justified as long as it is in a good cause.”

There seems to be something missing here. What was unethical wasn’t ‘causing someone harm’, because it is not what actually happened in the experiment. It was debriefed that they hadn’t harmed someone. So Milgram didn’t excuse the behaviour in the experiment by justifying it being for a good cause, however, he justified the deception by saying it was for the greater good. And it worked (according to his book and to the authors of the article). The ethical discrepancy rather is; is it ethically sound to temporarily cause participants distress? Even if debriefing removes this distress? Is it ok if the means justify the ends…

My own contention about Milgram’s study is that, while it seems his means were worth the end, the thing is that prior to running the experiment we could not know if it was going to gain us anything. Even opinion stated that nothing exciting would come from it (by researchers’ and students’ best estimates), finding out that that wasn’t case, could be argued to justify the means. But only in retrospect. A “luxury” we most definitely don’t have today.

I have however not read the paper that the article is based off of. So perhaps I am misunderstanding the misunderstood Milgram misinterpretation.

Skip text between brackets (first two paragraphs) to avoid (unnecessary) thoughts leading up to the depiction-theoretical argument.[Computers are fallible. They also rely necessarily on electricity. Is there then no wonder that we can have a preference for books because they are perceived as tangible/physical, as opposed to a Kindle e-book, which would be perceived as intangible? However it should also be said that the capitalist consumer model is better suited for e-items since buying and discarding wouldn’t take as large a toll on the world’s resources (hence the ongoing work of paper document free workplaces).

For me personally there is also a feeling of ownership involved. A book is mine, and I can keep it and pick it up when I want to. An e-book exists in something and only by virtue of both the device working and continuous access to electricity (over a longer time perspective). It doesn’t then feel like I own it because my access to it relies on things outside my perceived control.]

This is another distinguishing aspect between screen-presented alternative objects/environments and for example drawing a painting. I had written in my notes about the previous post “created vs. programmed” and couldn’t fit it in because it is another stratification of depictions and virtuals (virtual objects, environments and agents). Here goes. Both are created, essentially, but programmed necessarily requires programming and created does not… Ugh, awesome start.Created depictions are objects that are a part of the environment but not the actual object themselves, they lend themselves for perception of information (about possible affordances about the object they depict or similar objects)*. This would include, for example, a painting of an apple. Created depictions rely necessarily on the existence of the environment, but not the opposite.Programmed depictions are objects that are a part of the virtual environment but do not lend themselves to virtual affordances, they lend themselves for perception of information (about possible affordances about the object they depict or similar objects)*. This would include, for example, a jpeg image of a painting of an apple. Virtual depictions rely necessarily on the existence of the environment, and, a virtual environment, but not the opposite.I believe that a depicted object is experienced differently depending on if it is created or programmed. This may have to do with a more so tangible feeling of a created depiction and the more so intangible feeling of a programmed depiction (but this is my personal experience and perception of created vs programmed depictions and so may hold very little value if put through a scientific method). I also get the feeling that this may have to do with “actual” and “perceived” reality, but that is another whole dimension and I need to think more thoroughly about it before feeling confident it holds any value.*Note by the way, that the depiction merely needs to have a similar enough optical array for it to be considered depicting any specific object. Perception is also individual depending on experience, but this is covered already (although it may need further theorising).

First and foremost to be able to argue for the framework below, restructuring of the language use surrounding depictions may be needed. It is argued here that the overarching term should be alternative objects and alternative environments including the two (or four) subcategories depicted objects/environments and virtual objects/environments.The main division bears on the ongoing discussion if depictions afford us anything (Wilson, 2013). This is an attempt to further this discussion.Virtual objects (such as those used in screen-based research) are able to be interacted with –however, only in the virtual environment. Virtual objects, then, relies on a virtual environment. They do not afford the agent anything, unless the virtual objects are connected to the environment (for example controlling movement of an object in the environment by virtue of a Human Computer Interface). They do afford the virtual agent whatever the virtual environment and virtual objects are programmed to afford. Depicted objects then, do not afford an agent anything, but can provide (accurate or inaccurate) information about what the depicted object represents. They can inform us of possible affordances in the environment just like objects afforded to others, perceived by us, inform us that this affordance may be possible. The point of divergence then is that depicted objects do not afford us anything because we cannot become part of the depicted environment as depicted agents. Also, we cannot become agents in a depicted environment, we can only ever be agents in the environment. If we can become part of the depicted environment, it is not a depicted environment but a virtual environment -and we only become part of it as a virtual agent. Virtual objects do not afford agents anything if we strictly speak of the environment, however, as a virtual agent in the virtual environment the depictions afford the virtual agent, while it still only informs the agent because hie [ie:] is only ever in the environment. This is also to say that although an agent interacts with a virtual environment it necessarily has to be done through some form of apparatus/machinery, without it, the virtual environment would merely be a depiction.An agent is thus not afforded anything, by neither depicted nor virtual objects/environments. Depicted objects can provide information that may or may not be useful in the environment, just like perceiving objects in the environment can provide such information. Virtual objects can afford virtual agents, just like objects can afford agents. They can also provide information, just like depicted objects. They can only afford agents by virtue of being connected back to the environment. This is however an oxymoron, because agents are still only in the environment, and only afforded something in the environment.